Happy New Day!

I've talked to quite a few people lately who are looking forward to having 2009 behind them. Whether they've meandered through health crisis or financial trials, relational difficulties or whatever, it's nice to think "it's over" and hope for a different sort of year in 2010. Truth is, I had a particularly difficult year as well. It started with mono and spending weeks on end in bed, not getting out of bed but to go to the bathroom. I didn't even really eat. A multitude of cascading health problems continued to emerge which no local doctors were able to help me with. I made the bold move of seeking medical attention outside the state. The cost has been enormous, but I'm on my way to better health, albeit the path still seems uncertain, and many questions remain for the future.

But it would be tragic neglect for me to not pause and reflect on the incredible gifts that those difficulties have born in my life. If there were one word to describe the gifts I've received it's "adventure". In many ways 2009 has been the culmination of twenty plus years of chronic pain and mysterious health maladies. When several months ago I became allergic to zippers and jewelry I pronounced to my husband "I draw the line at zipper allergies!". He wisely quipped, "What are you going to do about it? Start a line of zipperless clothing? Or maybe you should just go with 24K gold zippers?" As funny as it sounds, there's profound truth in this statement. Out of the total frustration of impaired health new discoveries have abounded.

The wanderings and discoveries of the past year have led me to an organic lifestyle that involves not only purchasing organic foods whenever possible, but growing and canning it as well.

I've also gone chemical free with my personal care regime. After 30 years of mask wearing, I unveiled the real authentic me. I wear some eye make up several days of the week, but typically my face is authentic and naked! Wow this is huge. The other day a friend told me she could never do that because her skin isn't as beautiful as mine. I had to tell her, my skin didn't look like this until I made the bold move to stop wearing the mask. The quest for chemical free skin care led me to create my own face soap, yes it really will be out for sale this year, but for now I'm loving being able to use my own soap with NO chemicals.

And this essay on gifts born out of difficulty would be far from complete without recognizing the people I have met along this journey. Wonderful people who struggle that I might have not had the priviledge of knowing without my own wanderings through difficulty. I must tell this story because it is just a picture of the irony of the struggle. Earlier this month I met the "coffee moms" at our local hot spot for excellent coffee and atmosphere. They are a group of moms from my son's school who meet weekly for coffee. I show up sporadically and they are nice enough to include me. Anyway, on this day, three moms were already seated, and I started to sit down next to one of the moms, I hadn't even landed on my bottom when I found myself subconsciously abruptly changing directions to a standing position and emphatically stating that I could not sit there. The moms looked at me bewilderingly as I tried to explain. Which of course I had to quickly scan my brain for my own understanding. Turns out, as I inched closer to the sitting position, there was a fake Christmas tree behind the couch the gals were seated on and someone must have sprayed Christmas tree fragrance on it. The fake phony synthetic chemicals wafted over to me and I instinctively jerked away. I chose a spot farther away from the tree. Soon another mom showed up who in the past had expressed to me the fact that she was chemically sensitive and the spot near the tree was the only one left. So I casually mentioned to her that I decided not to sit there because of the fragrance and she immediately started backing away. Turns out she's allergic to artificial trees. She discovered the hard way, that artificial trees have latex in them. She has a latex allergy. Anyway the common enemy created an instant bond between us. When a nearby customer left we quickly inhabited his table farther away from the tree and delved into a conversation about how we feel like social outcasts because of our plight and were soon swapping discoveries, successes, failures, and survival techniques for chemically sensitive individuals living in a world that is oversubscribed with chemicals. All this to say, I had an unexpected new friend who understood my plight without me explaining it.

So yeah, while life is incredibly complicated dodging food allergens and chemicals that creep into my life in one form or another and searching for practitioners who are armed with the right information and arsenal of tools to help my unique situation, I am on the adventure of a life time. I am discovering new foods to fuel my body, foods that taste good that I never would have considered eating a year ago. I am finding out that unveiling the authentic face that I was born with actually feels like freedom from the burden to artistically remake it everyday. And I'm discovering people who struggle too that I understand without a word because I've been there too. It's not easy and I never would have chosen this journey. But it's the journey I'm on and I'm learning, growing, and discovering new things because of it. So it's the journey of discovery that I am truly grateful for. I stopped making new year's resolutions many years ago, because plans get redirected, and that always felt like failure. So now, I just take it one day at a time, and for the start of this year I look forward to spending a lazy day with my family!